Electric Memories
Warren Buttery
The Early Years | Story 1 of 4
Electric Memories is an online storytelling platform that documents, records, and packages your defining moments, lessons learned, and personal history across multiple media for permanent storage, access, and sharing. For more information, visit www.electric-memories.com.
For the complete set of Warren Buttery’s audio, video, and text remembrances, visit www.electric-memories.com/warrenbuttery.
The interviewer is Brian Gruber.
This interview is the first of a four-part series featuring Warren Buttery. You can read the entire series at medium.com/electric-memories.
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What about you as a professional was showing up in a similar way in the Australian Army, in humanitarian work, in your yoga work?
This is my ego speaking, but it was very similar work. I served in the Australian Army almost 12 years, the Corps of Signals. My role was to listen to people and create safe space for professionals to do their job in supporting communities with healing. We’re talking large communities at times; some of the organizations I was working with were dealing with a million beneficiaries in the early days of the Afghanistan invasion. Generally smaller than that, maybe 100,000, 10,000, maybe a smaller community, almost always in conflict. Instead of working on that industrial scale, I’ve whittled it down to much more personal small groups, individuals. It’s always been on a path of supporting people, a path of service. And that’s what I feel as a yoga teacher and practitioner of other modalities, to be in service.
I’ve always been on a path of supporting people, a path of service.
I learned a lot about what’s happening in other people’s minds. I can never feel someone else’s pain. But I can understand where it comes from. I used to think I was good at empathy, but I’m not. I’m good at compassion. Empathy is where you feel someone else’s pain, put yourself in their shoes. I cannot. And did not professionally because I couldn’t serve people if I got caught up in the emotions of what was going on. And the army really taught me that, to separate. The army in a way teaches you how to be a sociopath (laughs). You’ve really got to separate what is life and what is the intention of the intervention. And so I can be compassionate but I can’t get lost in the emotions of what someone else experiences.
One of my skills was to teach people how to put landmines into the ground. I went to the most landmine-infested country in the world. And what I saw was different from what we were taught. We were taught the landmines are a legitimate weapon of war. And it’s to stop, to create problems for militaries. But in Afghanistan, in countries in Asia that I have worked, that’s not necessarily true. The greatest victims are women and children who go foraging for water and food and firewood.
Warren Anywhere
Where and when were you born?
When people ask me where I’m from, I like to have a little mystery. And so I say I’m from everywhere, because for me…
That’s your Facebook name.
Warren Anywhere. A small part of me is where I’m from. What brought me here is a much more interesting question. Because I’m very, very different than that person there. I was born in Adelaide 1966, August 21. Working class family, nuclear family, but I left home when I was 16. It wasn’t necessarily my choice but, later in life, I appreciated that decision. I joined the army two months after my 19th birthday. In my 12-year military career, I got to travel around a lot in Australia, most of it living in a capital city. I’ve seen a lot of that big, dry dusty country.
How much is being an Australian part of your identity, of who you are today?
I just started watching cricket for the first time in 15 years (laughs) Not very much. I feel it’s a compliment when people say they don’t know where I’m from, from my accent. Of course, it’s in me, but I really left behind a lot of Australia. What I determined over the years, a lot of the reasons why I left still exist for me, probably more so. The politics of the country, the immigration issues, the treatment of the indigenous populations. But yeah, cricket has been sparked in this last ashes test series.
What do you think are the most precious gifts that your parents passed on to you?
Nonattachment. Yeah, definitely.
Explain.
When I reunited with my mother, 32 years later, I thanked her, I truly deeply thanked her, because she made some decisions back then which precipitated my father asking me to leave home. It could have been traumatic but I was able to just accept it and move on. I thanked her deeply. If she hadn’t taught me that I can be self-sufficient, that I can make my own decisions, I probably wouldn’t. It’s given me this opportunity to live an extraordinary life without regret. I listen to a lot of people and their stories and their trauma. And so much of it is the father and mother wound. I felt that I dealt with that pretty well, fairly young, because there was a huge healing experience that took place on Koh Phangan via Skype when I reconnected with my mother.
It’s given me this opportunity to live an extraordinary life without regret.
Why didn’t you talk for 32 years?
I’m stubborn. I decided that they had made a decision. And there were a couple of follow up events where I thought, I’ll hold them to that decision. And the independence that you give me, I’m going to hold on to also. So I stuck to it. Regrettably, I didn’t get a chance to reconnect with my father before he passed but did so with my mother. And we had conversations for a year and a half before she passed.
And your brothers and sisters?
I have a sister. Who I don’t really know. We’re connected on Facebook. We’re very, very different personalities. She lives somewhere in central Australia, probably around Alice Springs, I have a half-sister, who I’ve met maybe three times. We’re second family. My father married twice. My sister is three years older. But my half-sister is 20 years older than me, if she’s still around.
Bucking the System
Talk about your education.
Very limited.
You left home at an early age, presumably that affected your academic career?
Yes, yes, yes, I repeated year 11. And the second year around, it was three of my dear friends, we all repeated together. So 11 second time was quite a blast. But that was the time I had separation between my parents and I, so I couldn’t do my HSC (High School Certificate) because I had to work, I had to earn a living. It wasn’t until I joined the army. I was a soldier for five, six years, then applied to be an army officer. To do that, I needed an education course to get my HSC. And then from there, I went to Duntroon, Royal Military College, to graduate as a lieutenant. So that was my structured education. But I’ve always been inquisitive or curious. I truly have learned from others, and particularly from mistakes of my own. The next time I did any schoolwork was to do my yoga teacher training.
You talked in a kind and gentle way about your relationship with your mother, the notion of learning non-attachment, but there was some moment or incident at which you, either by your own volition or with a nudge, left your family of origin.
They made the decision. And I just stuck to it.
They made the decision. To what?
To ask me to leave home. Actually… what… it is a bit personal, but I’m open to it.
It was troublesome times with my parents, and particularly my mother. it got to a point where my mother thought it was untenable for me to live there. And she said to my father, it’s either I go or she goes, and my father said, “Well, son, I can live without you.” And I said, “Okay, you will,” and I was out the next day. To recover from that, straight away, I thought, okay, I’m on my own, no problem. I’ll deal with this as grown up as I could at 16. I was really blessed. I fell in with some really good people with jobs, older than I, sharing an apartment.
I got to this point when 32 years later I recognized okay, it makes sense to reconnect. And I’m strong enough and understanding enough within myself. We’re at the Sanctuary and I had a Skype call with my mother, surrounded by good people. I got her number through my sister, thanks to Facebook.
And I called her up. And I thought I was being really grown up. But my first questions to her were the questions of a 16-year-old boy, like, what did I do wrong? How bad could I have been? What did I do to ignite this in you? And she made a list. And (laughs) actually, the first statement was, well, you bucked the system. And I got zoomed back to 16. Like, what does that mean? I didn’t know what that meant when I was 16, bucking a horse? I still don’t understand what that means now. And she said, well, you didn’t follow the rules. You didn’t like making your bed. You didn’t like doing the dishes. You noticed girls, you earned more money than we did. You caught taxis and we couldn’t afford them. Oh, I guess you’re right. Because all these are still true. So if these are the reasons, you made the right decision. Bad decision but right decision. What I understood was, her little boy was growing up. And she no longer had control or connection to that little boy.
The next time we had a call, a few weeks later, she was very defensive, attacking. I told her a little bit about my humanitarian work on the first call, and I was living and working in Burma, of course, the Rohingya genocide issue had come up. And she said, you’re not working to bring them here, are you? Whoa, hmm. I tried to go on, to try to express myself about immigration and conflict, and blah, blah, blah, which of course wasn’t relevant to her. She was just acting out because I’d made her feel defensive about things. The beautiful thing about that second call was she started to explain a little bit about her life. And she got to the topic of my father who’d passed. And she was… he was terrible. “He was so awful to me, he treated me like a house slave.” And I said, whoa, hold on, hold on. I don’t know what went on with your relationship. And that really, that’s not my business. From my perspective, I don’t want to hear, sorry, I can’t hear this because he made the greatest sacrifice. He chose the woman he loves over his only son. That’s a pretty big deal. That was a bad decision. But it’s the decision he made so I will not listen to your criticism of him, that’s your stuff. For me, he made the ultimate sacrifice of love to you. Yeah, yeah. And I forgave both of them a long time before, that was part of my journey, to forgive. It’s not their fault. I must have been terrible, but not according to her list (laughs).
Did that affect your choice not to have children?
I have looked at that. Neither my sister nor I have had children. Not intentionally. The work that I chose after the military had me moving around a lot. Short term contracts, three months, six months, even one year, some back-to-back contracts. And so it didn’t come up as an opportunity. I got married for a little bit in Sri Lanka with an incredible woman, but it was a lot of fire. At one point, we had discussed children. But there was too much anger in our relationship. There were also too many drugs and too many parties. I said, well, once we can clear that, then we can consider, but not right now.
Do you find ways to mentor or parent younger people?
Not deliberately, but it happens. I’m almost always — except when I’m in the room with you — the oldest man in the room (laughs).
And it’s been that way, for a very long time. I found it difficult to find mentors, male role models. In the military, there were people above me. But once I got to somewhere near them, I recognized that these are not the kind of men that I want to be. It’s one of the big reasons why I left the military. Abuse of power, overinflated ego. Not in connection with who they were. In connection with the facade of, I am an army officer, I am Lieutenant Colonel, and I didn’t want to be that. One of my ways is to sit with younger men, I’ve always done that; in Afghanistan, with my work, employ younger women and men. With sitting in communities, with younger men and women to listen to them, not just the old men, because that’s typically what happens, but also to listen to the younger ones. Even if I’m sitting at the back of a party rolling a spliff. And some young guys would come and sit around and listen.
I found it difficult to find mentors, male role models.
Think back to the decision-making process to join the army. What brought you to that?
I joined the army because of a woman. But it’s not what you think (laughs). Because I…
Because you look good in uniform?
That came up later (laughs). And I did. I was kind of family-less. I’d been dating a woman for a year or so, on and off at high school, and when I left school, her mother, Joy, got to a point and said, Warren, you’re just not doing enough for yourself. Yes, you have a job, but really, you’re just pissing your money up against the wall, like literally Friday night, drinking, getting drunk. And I want better for my daughter. I thought, ooh, okay. So I joined the army. And it’s not the girlfriend. She’s not the reason, it’s Joy. The mother. She’s the reason because she instilled a sense there’s more potential in me. As I graduated as an army officer, there’s a tradition of having your loved ones putting your insignia, the pips, on the shoulders. I had a partner, she was on one side, and I asked Joy to come and put them on the other side. She traveled from Adelaide to Canberra to do that and, a couple of years later, I went to the girl’s wedding as a guest, which I thought was a nice rounding off.
How important was that moment for you when they put the insignia on?
Oh, a lot of pride, a great deal of relief. A sense of wonderment, going into such an incredible sheltered workshop, what the military is. My father was in the Navy, he fought in World War Two. So perhaps something in there. My mother also, she was in the Australian Army Reserve for a few years. I’m not sure if it played a great deal on me having that background, but perhaps it did because I ended up in uniform. I’ve always had a sense of adventure. And if you look at army kids, many of them come from broken homes or they come from a lineage or they come from poverty. Empires need poor people, so they can have armies. And they offer opportunity.
And family?
Yes. Exactly. That’s the sheltered workshop. Yeah. Family. A sense of belonging, camaraderie, support, never had to question what I was going to wear that day. It gave me my education. It gave me status, I guess.
All Due Respect
What’s the most intense memory you have from your army years?
There was a gentleman, an army major, I really looked up to him. He was a runner and I was a runner. He was specialist service regiment. That’s where I wanted to go. I really looked up to him. After I graduated from Royal Military College, I went into his unit, he became my commanding officer.
After some time, my parents decided they wanted to try and reconnect with me. They decided to do that through my commanding officer. He said to me, Lieutenant Buttery, you should connect with your parents. I order you to contact your family. I said, with all due respect, sir, you can fuck off. Now (laughs), he didn’t really appreciate that comment. It was an illegal order. He couldn’t charge me. He committed quite some time on getting back at me. I was the mess officer. We created games around a function and he challenged me to the obstacle course that I’d created. We’re in dress uniform, and he said, okay, we run up this cargo net on the steps of this beautiful old Queenslander house. He went to grab my feet because I was ahead of him to pull me back, to cheat. But the army shoes I was wearing had steel taps on the toes and heels. He cut his hand, sliced it right open and went to hospital. I carried on the evening, we decided as young subalterns we’d go out and get drunk. He came back with stitches in his hands and said, where’s Buttery? He wanted to challenge me again. I was already out on the town. I think I got 21 extras that time. I had to serve at the front gate, no life for 21 days. He later became my careers officer. That’s when my career really started to go down (laughs). That was instrumental in me understanding the man that I wanted to be. Looking at role models and recognizing these are not the kind of models that I wanted to be. It brought me to the end of my Army career, saying I don’t want to be part of this any longer.
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Electric Memories is an online storytelling platform that documents, records, and packages your defining moments, lessons learned, and personal history across multiple media for permanent storage, access, and sharing. For more information, visit www.electric-memories.com.
For the complete set of Warren Buttery’s audio, video, and text remembrances, visit www.electric-memories.com/warrenbuttery.
